Forest vegetation communities of Peterhof Road parks

The gardens and parks of Peterhof Road are the most important part of the green necklace of St. Petersburg Russia''s national treasure. Modern society has an obligation to preserve this valuable cultural heritage for future generations. The majority of modern geobotanical studies are devoted to natural processes occurring in natural plant communities or to anthropogenic impact on these natural communities. This study provides a methodological basis for the study of plant communities created with native and introduced species and which have undergone long-term development under the complex influence of natural and anthropogenic factors. Due to their dynamism the parks have lost the appearance characteristic of the time when their formation was completed. As a result of the planting of broad-leaved species and the introduction of soil from the broad-leaved forest zone that took place when the parks were created a more southern variant of the forest vegetation has developed over the course of the parks'' development than is typical of the area in question. The parks of Peterhof Road are a single system comprising two subsystems: the upper and lower terrace communities.